Posts from — April 2008

Technology is really moving fast these days. It’s hard to keep up sometimes. Take flying cameras for example, I had no idea commercials and films have been using flying camera technology for several years already. They’ve even used these gadgets on a few Harry Potter films, The Da Vinci Code, and The Beach.

Films typically use wires and tracks and all sorts of other devices to get difficult shots. But what if you still can’t get a camera close enough to the action? No problem! Just rig up “the methanol-powered Flying Cam, a mini helicopter that can be outfitted with 35mm, 16mm or HD video cameras” to get the job done.

For amateur filmmakers, you could use a helicopter spy cam instead. However, I doubt the video quality would measure up.

Source: People of the Web: Gadgets and Gadflies

Al Pacino’s new movie, 88 Minutes, hits theaters today. It has a 14% rotten rating, which according to /Film means it’s one of the worst movies ever (in the history of RottenTomatoes.com anyways).

Trailer Check:

I’m gonna listen to the critics for once and sit this one out. A better, although still mediocre, murder/suspense/cop movie with “minutes” in the title would have to be 15 Minutes. This time instead of Pacino, we’ve got Robert De Niro trying to catch a serial killer sends taunting videos of his crimes to the network news. It’s on the same level of predictability and still has the Oscar winning actor doing less than stellar work schtick.

It took me awhile, but I finally got around to watching Disturbia on HBO. It’s very slow at first, like really slow actually.

For like the first 30 minutes, you just watch Kale (Shia LaBeouf) become more and more frustrated while under house arrest. This boredom supposedly drives him to spy on his neighbors, including the hot girl next door and oh a psycho serial killer! Kale enlists his friend and said hot girl to help him figure out if the neighbor is Ted Bundy or whatever.

Kale apparently becomes MacGuyer overnight and modifies wireless home security receivers to transmit camcorder footage to his computer. No relying on binoculars in this day and age like in Rear Window. Now you got to get hard evidence! Kale can’t do it himself since he’s got the house arrest ankle bracelet problem. Thus, he talks his friend into sneaking into the neighbor’s garage to find a supposed dead body. He monitors his friend in the garage via the JVC camcorder footage being transmitted.

David Morse who plays said neighbor catches winds to all this activity and of course isn’t too pleased. At first, he’s just borderline creepy by mysteriously appearing inside Kale’s house and hitting on his mom. Then, he barges into the hot girl’s car and gives her a not so friendly and unsettling warning that he likes his privacy. But soon enough, he pulls off the mask and tries to kill everyone.

Suffice it to say, it was okay, like a grade B-. I do have to admit that there is something to the LaBeouf charm. It simply wears you down. It’s no wonder it did so well at the box office. Here’s hoping he can get the young-ins to the theater for Indiana Jones 4.

Canon released their first line of HD flash camcorders this month, the Canon HF10 and HF100. According to this news source, the two HF models are about the same:

“both camcorders are basically identical, with each featuring Full HD recording (1920×1080 resolution), 12x optical zoom, and the ability to record footage at 24p and 30p frame rates. Optical image stabilization and a 3.3 megapixel CMOS sensor round out the camcorders’ features.”

The HF10 relies on internal memory and/or flash memory cards, while the HF100 operates on memory cards only. Both camcorders are on the pricey side. But since Canon is a reliable brand, it would be a worthwhile investment.

The Canon HF10 starts at $879.

And the HF100 starts at $1099.

For some crazy reason (maybe not so crazy if you’ve read my Old School Friday posts), I am seriously pumped about AVP 2. None of my friends could find take a break from their new year stupor and watch with me in theaters this past January. So basically, I’ve been waiting for 4 months to finally see what this alien/predator hybrid looks like!

I had no idea that these AVP flicks are based on a Dark Horse comic series. I think I gotta check out the Terminator vs Alien vs Predator comic. Just that phrase alone simply blows my mind.

Buy Alien vs Predator: Requiem on dvd today.